The present day telephone system provides means for its subscribers to verbally communicate with one another. The verbal communications must occur in real time and require that the sender and recipient have simultaneous access to their telephone stations for communication. If the sender is unable to initially place the call at a time when the recipient has access to his telephone, the sender must continue to repeat the call until the recipient is present. Similarly, if the sender desires to send the same verbal message to a number of recipients, he must repeat this process of establishing telephone contact with each recipient and repeating the message. Thus, the present day method of delivering verbal communications is time consuming, and in the business community the time spent in such present day verbal communications is inefficient and recuces personal productivity.
While auxiliary devices, such as telephone recording systems, may be installed for individual telephone sets, such devices do not fill the need for the rapid and efficient delivery of verbal messages in the business community. A need has thus arisen for a centralized telecommunications system which eliminates many of the inconveniences, inefficiency and time consuming requirements of the existing telephone network. The telecommunications system of the present invention overcomes many of the disadvantages, expense and inefficiency associated with the existing telephone networks, and it provides an efficient method to improve verbal communications between subscribers of a communication system employing the present invention.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, subscribers within the system can deposit a verbal message in memory and select the addressees to receive the message. The memory means controlled by an electronic digital signal processing means stores the deposited verbal message along with the addresses of the recipients. A communications system then automatically takes over the function of delivering the messages to the addressees and notifies the sender within a predetermined period of time of any messages that have not been delivered. The user depositing a message in the system may provide the system with a number of addressees for automatic delivery of the stored message without requiring any further time by the user sending the message.
The system enables the user to control the recording operation through signals from the user's telephone. The system has prerecorded "canned" messages to be played back to the user to advise them of his progress in using the system and provide instruction. The system may require the user to enter an authorization code which is checked for validity prior to access to the message deposit function of the system. If a stored message is not delivered to the intended recipient within a predetermined period of time, e.g., next business day, it would be readdressed to the sender informing him of the nondelivery of the message.
The system will attempt to automatically deliver the message to each of the message recipients a predetermined number of times at predetermined time intervals. The user receiving notification from the system of the message to be delivered may enter a unique authorization number which is validated by the system prior to voice message delivery. After receipt of each message, the recipient is provided with means to instruct the system to redirect the message, reply to the message by depositing a message of his own, store the message in a verbal file folder, acknowledge message receipt or save the message for a predetermined period of time, e.g., one complete business day. The playback of the voice message may be controlled by the user receiving the message through the telephone station.
A user may access the telecommunication system of the present invention by telephoning the system from a telephone outside the system's network to determine if there are any messages for the user. The system includes prerecorded "canned" messages which inform the user of the number of messages addressed to him and provides the user with instructions on how to receive the messages.